Norwich is one of two – it could be said – tiny shows you’re playing before you hit the big ones this month. Oh, c’mon! I’ve played Norwich before, a number of times and it’s a never a let down!
Tere’s a pull quote already: “Norwich, never a let down.” [Laughs] It’s not! It’s always so fun, and beautiful – good combo, right?
And you’re playing a small, but perfect venue, an old church, reimagined, so you’ll be channelling the spirits of generations past, that evening. Perfect, perfect. I hope I’m gonna seal the channel and if not, I welcome anyone else on stage to channel.
Just to clear up a bit of business; we’re obviously very interested in our own locality, being a regional magazine, but I’ve noticed that geographically, Brooklyn gets all the love from you - what’s wrong with Norwalk? [Joan’s hometown] Norwalk’s great, yep, nothing bad to say about Norwalk. It sort of mimics New York City in the way that it’s very diverse. Tere’s a lot of towns nearby that are very homogeneous and my parents were the kind who searched out a place for their kids to grow up in a diverse town. And as soon as my parents allowed me, and even sooner than they allowed me, I could hop on the commuter rail and be in New York City in 55 minutes.
Joan has a backstory. Yes, it’s fascinating, but you can Wiki it after reading this interview, because to dwell on Joan’s past doesn’t give her one ounce of credit for the present and the future that Joan is creating for herself and us. Not content with stealing our hearts on her first two records, the broken-glass-tread-
tenderly ‘Real Life’ and ‘To Survive’, she picked us up and took us along for the ride with funkier ‘Te Deep Field’ and now the instantly accessible ‘Te Classic’. Tis interview with Joan Wasser, the one-time
violinist for Antony and the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright, is one of my favourites of all time: frank and full of mad energy, the lady emotes as much as her music.
12 /March 2014/
outlineonline.co.uk
For some reason, I’ve not been able to listen to the promo that I’ve been sent of your new album, ‘Te Classic’, so I’ve been rinsing the two singles from it on YouTube instead. Are they indicative of what else is in store? Oh, they’re pretty indicative, yeah; there’s a bunch of pretty ‘up’ songs on the record. Some of them deal with pretty intense topics, like one of them deals with shame and it has this sort of James Brown kinda feel, really fast rhythm section stuff. I wanted to write a song about shame, but how ridiculous would it have been if I’d written a really super bummer song about it? [Laughs] I wanted to write a song about it that was really up, almost making fun of it, like “I’m done with you! Get out of my life.” So it’s not as if all the topics are like, ‘I’ve found you, finally!’; they deal with some pretty intense issues, but the overall feeling is really up. It’s so easy to be
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